Navy Cleanup on Treasure Island Forces Residents to Move

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Residents in two dozen homes on San Francisco's Treasure Island were notified this week that they will have to move because of the U.S. Navy's ongoing cleanup on the island.

The Treasure Island Development Authority sent a letter dated Monday to 24 households on the island, saying they will have to relocate the residents because of the Navy's cleanup work.

"The work is part of the Navy's ongoing cleanup of buried and currently inaccessible low level chemicals that were identified in prior assessments and historical investigations and is not related to ongoing radiological surveys," the letter states.

The residents will likely be relocated elsewhere on Treasure Island, according to the letter.

The TIDA is holding a meeting on Dec. 3 for the affected residents, as well as a meeting on Dec. 11 for all Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island residents to update them on the cleanup activities, which will take place in 2014.

The letter, signed by TIDA director Bob Beck and director of operations Mirian Saez, said "regulatory oversight agencies have repeatedly stated that it has been and continues to be safe to live in the units on Treasure Island."

Treasure Island is still owned by the Navy, which closed its base there in 1997.

Beck said earlier this year that the Navy plans to transfer the property to the city in four major phases starting in October 2014 and ending in 2021.

In 2011, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a massive redevelopment project to add thousands of new residential units, commercial space and other new infrastructure on the island.

Beck and other members of the development authority were not immediately available this morning to discuss the relocation of the
residents.

Anyone with questions about the relocations is asked to call the development authority at 415-274-0660 or email them at TIDA@sfgov.org.